Adelaide the Bold
Saint of Gambling, Luck, Risk, and Fortune
Titles: Adelaide the Bold, The Temptress, The Old Serpent, The Shining Lioness, Lady of the Table, The Night-Star, Goddess of the Golden Chalice
Favored Weapon: Starknife
Alignment: Air
Elemental Lord: Zaltath, Lord of the Zephyr
Obedience: Polish your dice, gambling coins, or other items used for betting or gambling, re-affirming their weight if they are loaded or rigged. Tidy your appearance, then roll two 6 sided dice - hide that many small, hideable weapons on your person for the day.
Effect: All light melee weapons you wield gain a 20ft base range increment if they do not have one or have a smaller one. You are proficient in them if you aren't already. You may, as an immediate action, adjust a dice roll(Either mechanical or in-game) you or another creature within 20ft makes by +1 or -1.
Divine Domains
Trickery, Chaos, Knowledge, Luck, Charm
Holy Books & Codes
Adelaide's Dictations
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A downwards facing dagger with a twenty sided dice for a pommel, and dice of all kinds inlaid down the center of the blade.
Tenets of Faith
Sow the seeds of chaos wherever you can. Law is predictable, and boring - foster the freeing chaos that others might live by their wits, on the whims of luck.
Trust in your luck and live a life of risks. Live your life by the fall of the dice, and blaze your path on the back of luck and risk that I may bless your efforts.
Never gamble on an even playing field. Always ensure the risks you take and the bets you make are skewed in your favor, if only the smallest of ways.
Know the strings of desire and manipulate them. Know the hearts of others and use their desires against them. A tempted heart is a heart eager to take risks.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
Unknown - if she has a concrete goal, she hides it well from even her own followers.
Followers and Priesthood
Contrary to her chaotic and whimsical attitude and tenets, Adelaide does have a concrete priesthood - though much of her followerbase exists independently and operates on their own or in small cells. When they do organize, they align themselves into small, flexible and highly capable units of no more than 7-10 dubbed "Cells", each lead by a "Pit Boss" in charge of their operation, and recieving instruction from leadership. Their followers tend not to have an established dress code, but are typically distinguished by long scarves, dusty outfits, or outfits otherwise designed for frequent travel - not to mention the gambling gear they frequently carry on them like dice, cards, and the like. Outside of these Cells, however, they have almost no distinguishing rank - the leadership of the faithful is a secretive thing and very few in number, as the creed of Adelaide rarely attracts others who would care to join a cohesive, dedicated cause. Indeed, the aim of these "Cells" can vary between them - some focus on overthrowing the rule of law in a given area, while others might be as banal as in charge of running a gambling den or overseeing gambling and other operations within a given city or area for Adelaide and her church. They tend to gather in hidden, out of the way places for secretive meetings, but most of the time can be found almost anywhere - they are most at home blending into a crowd, rolling the dice, or otherwise blending in with others. Her faithful can come from almost all walks of life, as any can yearn to live their lives by the whims of luck and risks - and the openness of her creed means many can be inducted into these "Cells" without ever realizing the zealotry of some other areas of the faith. Perhaps the only item given to every member of the faithful is a set of loaded dice or some other easy method of cheating at games of chance - be it cards who can change their face, loaded dice, or other means - upon their acceptance into the church. The leadership of the faith is perhaps the most mysterious thing about Adelaide's church - known only to the rest of the faith as "The Panopticon", this shadowy council of figures communicates with the rest of the pit bosses in charge of the cells, feeding them missions or information or requests as they come in, by way of specified drop points. There is almost never in-person meetings outside of the recruitment of extremely desirable creatures they wish to personally induct into the faithful, or extremely important missions like a game of chance played with a king's aide to earn a favor. This had lent them an air of unfathomable mystery, even outside of the faith - and many countries and their law enforcement agencies have bounties out for any information on them at most all times as a result.Ethics
Followers of Adelaide's faith believe in living their lives in chaos, according to the whims of luck and the ways of risk-taking. They find law and order boring, and predictable - and not worth living, to such a degree that they often see it as one of their Goddess-Given missions to give unto others the same anarchic freedom they themselves possess, though to varying degrees. Some may simply wish to persuade others, while others might seek to bring down governments and foster anarchy themselves - they are as varied as the stars in the sky, but are united in their dedication to the way of life laid down by Adelaide herself - of taking risks, living according to chance, and tempting others with their desires to get what they want. Followers of Adelaide often hold no qualms about using the desires or wants of their target against them when playing games of chance, and often do not enter into a game not skewed in their favor in some way...though some enjoy a truly random game of chance, and might entertain them where they appear. Since Adelaide's faith is a highly personal, independent one, their exact ethics can vary quite alot - some might be hardcore freedom fighters who seek to tear down law, while others might simply enjoy the notion of a Goddess who will trust and bless their lives so long as they live a life of risk and luck. Regardless, they are all manipulators or schemers to some degree, and almost none have any qualms against "cheating" - to them, winning is winning, and if one is not cunning enough to realize one is being cheated, they have no one to blame but themselves. To them, a risk is a thing worth taking based solely on its merits as a risk itself, and few need any other reason - "thrill-seekers", "adrenaline junkies", and the like are common titles ascribed to them. Others might be obssessed with a life lived by the whims of chance, wherever everything is decided by a roll of the dice - but regardless, all are united in their love of a chaotic, unpredictable life.History
Adelaide's history is one that begins during the Age of Apostasy, when the mad tyrant Cao Lu ruled the land with an iron fist - she was known to be a noble of sorts back then, with a husband of some renown. However, her husband was believed to have fallen victim to the rampaging whims of Cao Lu's royal guards, the High Lamia, and was devoured by them on the unfairest of whims. As just a helpless noble, she had no way to reverse what had happened, nor take revenge for her husband's untimely demise - but as she was spared, she would dedicate the ensuing years of her life to getting back at those who had wronged her. Throwing away her noble title and holdings, she began tracking down those responsible - traveling to the seediest of places, she began playing the games of the underworld, betting everything against crime lords, bosses, and shady denizens of the criminal underworld - and time after time, desperate to find information on those who killed her husband, she found that, somewhere along the way, she began to lose sight of her goal - she had begun enjoying her new life of chance and risk. However, determined not to let her newfound enjoyment of the life be in vain, she continued her quest, gambling against the strongest and most vile across the land until she finally won a game against a man who gave her what she had desired - information on those who had killed her husband. So, her journies took her to the tyrant Cao Lu's capital, Ssarizzax - and, though she was discovered after trying to sneak in, Cao Lu issued her an ultimatum - die in his dungeons for her crimes or entertain him with a game where the winner would get three favors from the loser they could not disobey. Making his lascivious desires on her clear, she nonetheless accepted Cao Lu's taunting offer, and engaged in a game of chance against him. Said to last an entire day and night, she played the game with him that would have made even a Devil falter - and at the end of it all, both exhausted, her tricks and subtle cheats uncovered and Cao Lu's schemeing laid bare, she finally claimed victory in the game, and earned her favors. What exactly she asked for was never recorded, but she is believed to have gotten a treasure from Cao Lu's vaults that catapulted her into sainthood while she yet lived - forming the basis of her faith with the artifact she got from that favor to spread the word of her enjoyment to others. It is not known whether she got revenge for her husband, but upon her death Zaltath, Lord of the Zephyr saw fit to induct her into the halls of his saints as a reward for her life of chaos and risk-taking.
We're here for a fun time, not a long time - so where's the fun in the daily grind, huh? No surprises, no twists? That's no life, that's a footnote. Be someone whose story would fill twenty books! Live a life of intrigue, of risk! There's no better way to live than when you have no idea what tomorrow brings.
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Children
Example Divine Oaths
Oath of the Anarchist: In places where power rests in the hands of the few, return it to the hands of the many. Empower the individual and foster chaos where law exists.
Oath of the Gambler: Never turn down a bet or chance to solve your problems through the whims of chance. Always have a means of cheating on you and use it where possible, but hide it well - let none discover it.
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